4 - Wednesday, January 21, 1987 - North Shore News Bob Hunter i | JUST found out that the ® stricily personal ® ae lady who lived next door when I was a kid has passed on. Isobelle Allenby was her name. To me, of course, she'll always be ‘Mrs. Allen- by.”’ { hadn't seen her for more than a decade, and then only briefly to have a few drinks and chuckle about the old days. Other than that, it has been near- ly 30 years since I moved away from “home.** People drift apart. It is a very Canadian thing, this drifting, although it doesn’t happen so much out here on the coast as it does elsewhere. The reason is simple enough: once you are here, where is there to g0? ! have moved, in fact, round the world, alighting in 30 coun- tries and finally coming to roost on the slopes of Burrard Inlet, near Indian Arm. There was only one other period of my life where I seemed F to belong to a definite place, a specific block in a_ specific neighborhood in a specific sec- tion of a specific municipality. That was during childhood, a period that seems to stretch back into infinity, while time, nowa- days, whooshes by. For most of the time I can remember being a kid, Mrs. Allenby was the lady next door who cared for my brother and | me, when my mother was away working, as though we were in some ways her own kids. She was there through floods and blizzards, grasshopper plagues and sickness, scary nights when the power went out during thunderstorms. Hers was the first house on the block with a television set, and we were always welcome there, even though I am sure it must have driven the Allenbys nuts to have all these neighbors hanging out to watch / Love Lucy. Mrs, Allenby loved I Love Lucy. It was Mrs. Allenby’s husband, Harry, who rescued us when a flood engulfed the entire neighborhood and my mother in- sisted on staying behind, with us kids, to sweep the floor in case { anyone came into the house while we were gone. I guess we might have drowned if he hadn’t come and got us. Mrs. Allenby who still had love to share with us even when her own son lay stricken with polio in Collins, Rankin debate NORTH Shore News columnist Doug Collins will lock verbal horns with former Vancouver City alderman Harry Rankin Friday, Jan. 23 over the subject of South the wake of that flood. It was my first close-up experi- ence of seving people I knew suf- fer. Here was a kid | had played with up until the night he was taken away, now utterly helpless, locked in an Iron Lung. Waiching Mr. and Mrs. Allen- by cope with Jimmy’s terror and despair gave me my first great | glimpse of the power of fove vested in ordinary people. The Allenby house and our own had kitchen windows facing each other. A lot of communica- tion got done by hand waving. On Halloween, it was in the Allenby’s back yard where we'd see the fireworks set off. After my father left, it was Mr. and Mrs. Allenby who helped, in dozens of little ways, to make things easier for my mother, my brother and me. There were times, believe it or not, when the snow actually drifted up higher than the kitchen windows, so we couldn't sce what was happening next door. And in those days, | would feel isolated if the comforting presence of the Allenby house was removed from view. It is amazing to me now to re- alize, upon hearing that Mrs. Allenby has died, that I can visu- alize every detail of the Allenby house, almost as well as the in- side of our own. I can see the garden with her out working in it. Her tomatoes were especially terrific. E can see her hanging out the clothes on wooden pegs or haul- ing ashes out to the pickup con- tainer by the back gate. God, she laughed a lot! Back then, | never knew an adult who laughed so much. She had a sharp, high barking laugh. You could hear her, easily, on summer nights, when the win- dows were open and only the screens kept the mosquitoes out. This wild, gleeful cackle. As if she knew that the world was a funny place, no matter what. It was nice to hear that sound in the night. It was the sound I remember the most as being the sound of our neighborhood. It made childhood a whole fot Jess frightening, a whole lot warmer. *Bye, Mrs. Allenby. Loved ya. The debate, sponsored by the Alma Mater Society and the Stu- dent Debating Society, is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. in the Uni- versity of British Columbia’s Stu- dent Union Building. We are pleased to announce Canadian Dollars at Par on the following ROYAL VIKING LINE CRUISES: Trans-Canal April 18/87 May 19/87 Rio de Janeiro to Florida ROYAL VIKING LINE May 5/87 Prices start at $172 per person per day for total luxury. 8) FOR FULL DETAILS CALL 926-4344 THE QUIET REVOLUTION IN DISHWASHERS KitchenAid. SUPERBA enue ened Salat Serle, SEIGPER Cyerk : t t ] f | t Get wate NOW WARE OUSE PRICED! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE oo D FIND IT ADVERTISE iF YOU INO ADV EEON THE DIFFERENCE OLONY} § HOME FURNISHINGS } Warehouse/Showroom OPEN TO THE PUBLIC {2 bIks Dehind the Avalon) y at 1075 Roosevelt Cres. N Van